IN MEMRORIUM

This is a difficult blog for me to write for today 11/15/15 as for the first time ever I saw photos of a few of my ancestors. Unfortunately three of the four people in the photos were of those lost during the Holocaust. To see their photos and know what happened to them was heartbreaking and brought tears to my eyes. I also found out one that survived passed away only seven years ago…if I had only researched my paternal side earlier I may have been able to meet her.

The black/white photos of the people in this blog were either from Yad Vashem or from the private collection of Anita Herze Jorg.

Eleven members of my family (that I know of as of this date) were taken from their homes, seven were killed in the Holocaust and four survived.

Through the above book I was able to find exactly what happened to those that died, two that survived. I found information on two others that survived by visiting a web site from Kaiserslautern, Germany web site pages dedicated to each family member with Stolpersteine (stumbling stones) dedicated on July 10, 2014 at the last address where they were free at Rudolph-Breitscheid-Str. 71, Kaiserslautern. Two currently have testimonials for them in Yad Veshem and I will be submitting them for the remainder over the next few weeks.

Rudolph-Breitscheid-Str, 71 pinpointed on the city map

Here are their stories and photos for those I have today. The daughter of one who survived still is living and I have written to the resource I found to see if I will be able to contact her as well as see the interview done with her father Erich Herze back in 1994 before he passed. Yes, I have hope to see more photos especially of ancestors that go back before the generations on this blog.

Camp Gurs Cemetery for the 1017 murdered here: Hugu & Hannalore Herze, both of whom died here in 1941, rest here and as people walk through the markers each will be remembered as will the other 1015

Herze, Lydia: born Lydia Horn

Born: March 29, 1912 in Kusel, daughter of Michael and Katharina Horn, family was Roman Catholic

Married: 06/06/1931 to Jacob Herze in Kaiserslautern and lived there

Deported: 10.22.1940 Baden/Plafz/Saarland….this after repeated request on the part of official bodies to renounce her Jewish husband, Lydia refused. She was sent back from Gurs to Kaiserslautern, where she was obliged to do forced labor and lived on February 5, 1943 to October 7, 1944 in the basement Straße 9, with her mother. Between October 1944 and July 1945, after escaping Kaiserslautern, she lived in Hamburg.

SURVIVED: She remarried on 03/29/1960 to Kurt Nagel, Lydia died on 08/16/1992 in Kaiserslautern.

Moved: The one and a half year old Ruth was brought by Blanche Raphael, pediatric nurse and Max Teichert to a children’s home to Limoges, France. They became her foster parents.

SURVIVED: Ruth knew a long time nothing about their origins and about the fact that both her mother and her sister were still alive. Erich Herze, the youngest brother of Jacob their father, finally found her and contacted her.. Mediated by Erich Herze her mother Lydia traveled to Limoges in 1950 to bring her youngest daughter home with her. This, however, was thwarted by the foster parents.

The relationship between Ruth Herze and her birth mother remained difficult, however, she had good contact with her older sister Hedwig and her uncle Erich, she visited him often in Malmö, Sweden, where he had fled in 1939. Around 1960 Ruth moved to Nimes and learned the profession of pediatric nurse. She then moved to Boulogne near Paris and later by Cagnes-sur-Mer near Nice, where she died of 2008.

Two children Erich Herze and Wilhelm Herze fled Kaiserslautern in 1939. Erich fled to Malmo, Sweden where he married had at least one child, a daughter. He died during a visit to Kaiserslautern with his daughter in 1999 and was returned to Malmo, Sweden for burial. Wilhelm immigrated to the United States, to Argentina. to Paraguay where he died in 1986.

This is the Synagogue the Herze family attended in Kaiserslautern from 1902 until 1938 when it was destroyed to make a parade ground for the Nazis:

Replica of Synagogue entrance memorial built in Kaiserslautern by the Jewish community